


Grow As We Go

by thepocketdragon



Series: Sing to me Instead [4]
Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: F/F, bechloe - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:13:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28029840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepocketdragon/pseuds/thepocketdragon
Summary: "I don't think you have to leave, if to change is what you need. You can change right next to me."Chloe has spent seven years at Barden University. Beca was right, she's scared to graduate. She's scared to have to go out into the world on her own. She's scared to say goodbye to everything she's come to know and love.Beca has a solution she'd like to share, a question she'd like to ask, if only Chloe would stop avoiding her.Pre-established Bechloe one shot. Not as angsty as my usual stuff. In fact, it's quite hopeful and light. Set during PP2.
Relationships: Chloe Beale & Beca Mitchell, Chloe Beale/Beca Mitchell
Series: Sing to me Instead [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2021515
Comments: 9
Kudos: 60





	Grow As We Go

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the 'Sing to me Instead' series where I listen to a song from Ben Platt's album on repeat and write whatever comes to mind.
> 
> Comments and feedback are always welcome. Please note that all of these one shots are written in one sitting, are unbeta'd and largely unedited.

It starts on a Tuesday.

At least, that’s when Beca notices it.

She notices it because, for the first time in a while, something is different.

Something is _off._

After four years, their routine is ingrained. Tuesday, after rehearsal, is movie night.

They have spots on the couch (strategically chosen to accommodate the ridiculously long legs of certain members of the group. Beca seems to get pushed further and further into other people’s personal space since she’s surrounded by amazonian women with giraffe legs). They have designated snacks specifically for the event (Beca’s favourite is the ‘movie mix’ Jessica makes. It’s popcorn, Reese’s pieces and the really salty pretzels from the dollar store. She needs to get up to refill her drink about four times and it makes her lips sore, but it’s worth it). They even have a rota for who gets to pick the film.

That’s kind of where it starts.

It starts with Ashley glaring at Lilly and vowing to repair the hideous nightmares they’ve all been having since the previous week’s showing of ‘The Killer Shrews’. She says she’s picked something lighthearted.

Something colourful.

Something with a plot that will not at all scar them or upset them or leave anyone frantically setting rat traps under their bed at 4am.

And then she pulls out the movie that Beca will forever come to put in the same box as ‘The Killer Shrews’, ‘Requiem for a Dream’ and ‘Watership Down’. Oh, and the memories of her parent’s divorce, the first time she got hit with the line “I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed” and the Leonard Cohen version of ‘Hallelujah’.

It’s a box in her head labelled “ _I will never emotionally recover from this”._

Beca hadn’t expected ‘Toy Story 3’ to make the cut.

Maybe it wouldn’t have under different circumstances.

But it starts on a Tuesday.

And, slowly, everything changes.

///

“Why are kid’s films always so heavy?”

Cynthia Rose is wiping away tears as she groans. Amy shrugs.

“I know, right? I mean, I was scarred by The Lion King before I could walk. And then Bambi. Oh, and Fox and the Hound…”

The naming of that particular film earns a collective sigh from the group.

“I think, maybe, it’s a way of teaching us to say goodbye. Of… of preparing us for the idea that things end and people leave.”

Emily’s words land like an anvil. They have just been through the emotional onslaught of watching their childhood favourites in peril, of Andy leaving for college with his ‘friends’ moving on to a new life. They’re also weeks away from actually having to say goodbye. None of them want to deal with the idea of endings. Amy’s glare is full of rage. Emily flinches as if it burns.

“You. Are. So. Stupid.” It comes out angrier than, perhaps, Amy even anticipated. She owns it, though. She gets up and makes a show of ignoring Emily as she moves past everybody to get to the stairs.“In fact, I’m so exhausted by your stupidity, I’m going to bed.”

Beca, with her captain brain flickering to life, makes a point of walking Emily to the door as the rest of the Bellas follow Amy’s lead and head to their bedrooms. She smiles at her, genuinely, and relaxes when the tall brunette does the same.

“Ignore Amy” she begins. “She seems to think of all of us in stereotypes. All of us have a thing that she clings onto. I’m Short Spice. Stacie is Sexual Spice. Flo is Salsa Spice. CR is Sapphic Spice. And, well, apparently you’re Stupid Spice.” There’s a pause. Beca glances behind her before she continues in a low voice. “I think she’s intimidated. You’re pretty clever. And what you said was pretty poignant. She might just be… processing that. In her own way. Don’t take it personally. Which, I know, is harder than I’m making it sound.”

Beca can’t help the protective feeling she has for Emily. She knows what it’s like to be an outsider, to feel as if you don’t quite belong. She wants Emily to know that she’s a Bella through and through. That they all love her. That they trust her to continue this crazy adventure with a new batch of singers in the fall.

“Maybe we should change your name.”

Emily pauses. “Songwriter Spice?”

Beca can’t help what her face does. She shakes her head as her nose crinkles.

“Psych Spice?”

“You know what,” Beca says with a smile as Emily finally makes it through the front door, “we’ll workshop something. Walk safe and text me when you’re home.”

The door closes and Beca turns back to assess the living room. Movie night is always a messy one; popcorn is inevitably thrown, nobody ever puts anything in the dishwasher and usually there are blankets hanging off every available surface. Tonight, there’s nothing. The room is clean, the food is away and the blankets are folded.

Something else is missing.

Movie night usually ends with everyone else in bed while Beca and Chloe clean together. They usually end up on the couch together, first discussing the film and ending with them going on tangents about music or vacations or anything else that takes their fancy. It’s one of Beca’s favourite things about movie night.

It’s the part she actually looks forward to.

The part she sits through the movie for.

Tonight, though, the couch is bare.

Tonight, Beca is alone.

As she climbs the stairs, she notices the light in Chloe’s room is on.

There’s a moment, as her fist hovers in the air, ready to hit against the glossed wooden door, where Beca hesitates.She’s not sure why. Hesitating isn’t something she usually does with Chloe. It’s not a characteristic Chloe appreciates in any way.

She takes a breath and knocks.

When Chloe opens the door, Beca’s gaze is immediately drawn to her mesmerisingly blue eyes. To the way they are reddened and rimmed with smudges of black. To the way tear tracks have carved a path through the foundation on her cheeks.

“Chlo?” She isn’t sure why it comes out as a question. “You… you weren’t downstairs.”

Chloe shrugs. “I was tired. Still am. I… I guess that movie drained me a little. I cleaned up and then came to bed. I’m exhausted.”

There’s a moment of silence but it doesn’t take much for Beca to get the hint.

“Okay. Night.”

Slowly, she heads upstairs to her own room to change and get into bed.

As she closes her eyes, head resting against her pillow, the fresh memory of Chloe’s teary face plays over and over alongside the image of a sad box of toys left by the side of the road as their owner heads off for a new life. She thinks how strange it feels to be going to bed on a Tuesday without their usual end-of-the-night talk. How alone she feels. How she’s going to be just as alone in a few weeks when all of this- the movie nights and the house full of girls and everything she has come to know and love- comes to an end.

Emily’s words play out like a soundtrack.

_“I think, maybe, it’s a way of teaching us to say goodbye. Of… of preparing us for the idea that things end and people leave.”_

She wishes they didn’t feel quite so poignant.

She wishes Ashley had never picked that stupid movie.

///

That stupid movie night turns out to be a catalyst. In her maudlin state of mind, Beca decides it’s the beginning of the end.

At least, that’s what it feels like.

It’s as if, from that moment, everything begins to pull apart. The threads come loose, slowly, until Beca feels herself grasping, pulling, to keep it all together. Which, really, should be a shock. It should be surprising that she’s clamouring for there to be noise and activity around her; that she’s finding the space and the quiet the hardest things to deal with, but these girls have been a part of her life for four years and every precious moment before they have to leave is wasted if they’re not together. She’ll have enough silence, enough space, when they’ve gone their separate ways.

That stupid movie has left Beca with a rock at the bottom of her gut, weighing her down. Sure, she’s confronted the idea of leaving before and she’s said goodbye before but not like this.

As her eyes scan the rehearsal room, she watches Stacie go over Emily’s steps with her. She notices the way Lilly surreptitiously takes Amy’s candy bar out of her backpack when she thinks nobody is looking. She sees Jessica and Ashley hovering in the corner, going over their harmonies with their hands firmly clasped together.

And she sees Chloe.

Chloe, alone in the corner checking over the sheet music.

The rock in her stomach seems to get heavier as it hits her.

Saying goodbye has never been this hard before because she’s never had to say goodbye to Chloe.

She’s never had to say goodbye to someone this special because she’s never _had_ someone this special before.

She’s not ready.

There is too much left to say.

If only she could get Chloe alone, she might even pluck up the courage to say it.

But, ever since that stupid movie night, that stupid Tuesday, Chloe has been drifting further and further out of reach. She’s been running alone instead of waiting for Stacie. She’s been studying in the library instead of in the house. She’s been getting coffee by herself, making lunch for just herself, spending her spare time in her room instead of in the living room with everyone else.

Beca can’t help but see the parallels with how she had been at the beginning of the year.

When she had a secret.

The thought jolts her back into reality, back into the rehearsal room, just in time to see Chloe slip out of the side exit before the girls have even finished gathering their things.

As Beca closes the door to their rehearsal space and tugs her bag onto her shoulder, she wonders whether Chloe is having just as hard a time processing the idea of saying goodbye.

Whether she’s making space now, putting a distance between them, so that- when it finally comes to say the one word neither of them want to utter out loud- it doesn’t hurt quite as much.

The rock sinks even further.

///

Alongside finals and Worlds and making arrangements for her mom to come to graduation, the prospect of ‘what next’ becomes more than a pipe dream. It becomes a legitimate question, one which needs an answer. One which needs a plan.

There are discussions and phone calls and offers of internships and assistant-level work in studios across the country and, suddenly, Beca is looking up the cost of renting an apartment in Brooklyn. It is extortionate and her savings will be eaten in a matter of months if she intends to stay warm and feed herself on anything other than water and fresh air.

It’s a terrifying notion, being alone and independent in a brand new city without her girls around her, and it _hurts._ It hurts to think about leaving them, about leaving behind everything they have created. There’s a bond there, an undeniably strong bond, and Beca knows the last four years have been life-changing for her. In more ways than one.

She knows everyone else is feeling it too. She sees the realisation in Amy’s eyes when she walks up behind her and sees her scrolling through Zillow. She clears her throat.

“This can’t be the end.”

It’s possibly the most heartfelt, truthful thing Amy has ever said. It’s said, however, through a mouthful of Reese’s Pieces which have definitely been stolen from the box in Beca’s desk so Beca knows she’s certainly not dealing with any kind of impostor situation.

She wonders whether that’s why she asks.

Because life with Amy is fun and light and, well, it gives her a sense of meaning. Amy may be difficult and unapologetically brash and evasive whenever money is mentioned but she has always been Beca’s champion. She has always seemed to understand her. She has always challenged her, whether Beca has liked it or not, and it’s always been an adventure.

The adventure is something Beca would like to continue.

  
Plus, it would be nice to not be completely alone.

“Come with me. I… I mean, if you don’t already have other plans?”

There’s something, a strange look, which passes across Amy’s gaze as she blinks. It’s only momentary, but Beca notices.

“Amy?”

Amy is uncharacteristically still. Quiet. Pensive. Beca begins to question her impostor theory once again until she’s pulled into a bone-crushing hug.

It’s only when they pull apart and Beca regains the feeling in her arms that she notices Amy’s forehead is still lined with worry. It pushes the rock in her gut down again, the pressure slowly building until it’s uncomfortable enough for her to have to ask.

“What’s up?”

Amy always looks away when she has something serious to say. She can bare-faced lie to anyone without blinking or flinching, something which she claims has made her a notorious presence on the Tasmanian poker scene. But telling the truth is something Amy finds uncomfortable.

That’s how Beca knows it matters.

That’s why the words stick.

“Beca,” there’s something distinctly unusual about being addressed by her name by the Australian, “I’d love to come to New York with you and find my Mr Big so that I can get a green card, but you need to talk to Chloe. About this. About… the future.”

Beca’s mind is filled with images of Chloe on her own. Chloe running early in the morning when she thinks nobody else is awake. Chloe leaving their rehearsal space at 7pm exactly and heading either to the library or to the shower without a word to anyone. Chloe sending short, one-word replies to messages which would have always warranted at least two sentences and a gif just a few months ago.

It’s trivial, she thinks. Trivial to be worrying about such a small distance when, in only a few weeks, there could be states and states between them. But it’s Chloe. With Chloe, everything matters.

Especially the small stuff.

“You need to talk to Chloe. Don’t make any decisions until you do.”

Amy’s instructions are pointed. Beca knows there’s a lot being left unsaid, a lot she could say. She knows they’re both worrying about what happens when distance becomes a factor they have to cope with.They’ve all experienced what it’s like when Beca and Chloe are pushed apart. They were all there for the explosive argument, for the tearful aftermath. Beca knows they’re better together. Their Worlds set is proving that very point every time they rehearse it.

Together, in any form, is better than being apart.

Beca knows what it’s like to feel that there’s a space between them. She knows how much it hurt then and how much more it would hurt if it was that way forever.

Beca knows she needs to talk to Chloe.

If only she could find her.

///

She finally finds her on a Friday.

It’s the one day they don’t have rehearsal because Beca and Ashley have late classes. It’s the day Chloe usually does cardio barre at the gym, sometimes with Stacie and Flo and sometimes on her own. She’s usually out of the house when Beca gets in.

Beca arrives home from her final class of the week and slips her bag off her shoulder, hanging it on her designated hook by the door (the one next to where Chloe’s royal blue Bellas jacket is hanging) like she’s in first grade all over again. She smells something spicy and warm being cooked up in the kitchen and follows her nose. She finds Cynthia Rose and Jessica by the stove, talking about their plans.

“So, Amy told us about New York.” It comes out at soon as Cynthia Rose clocks her presence. There’s never a greeting with CR. She jumps straight in. Beca’s used to it. In fact, she’s going to miss it. She’s going to miss a lot of things about these girls.

“Yeah. I… I got a job offer in Brooklyn and- well- it makes sense to split the rent.”

Jessica’s nose crinkles. It’s a sign, Beca knows from experience, that she’s trying to find the right words for something. Usually, it’s Ashley who jumps in and gets her to explain, but she’s not here. Instead, Beca takes the reins and plays captain once more.

“Jess? Just... don’t worry about phrasing it right or upsetting anyone. Tell us what’s on your mind.”

She’s not sure if she did it right, if she’s allowed to use the same kind of words Ashley does with her, but it does the trick. Jessica’s back straightens and she takes a breath.

“What about Chloe?”

“I… I don’t know what her plans are. I haven’t managed to talk to her about it.” Her voice lowers as she takes a deep breath and continues. “Actually, aside from important stuff for the Bellas, we haven’t had a real conversation since Monday.”

It’s the longest Beca has gone without talking to Chloe since the build-up to their argument at Aubrey’s retreat.

In a way, it’s a relief that she’s not the one avoiding and being secretive this time.

On the other hand, it scares her.

It scares her that she’s losing Chloe.

That she may have already loosened her grasp too much to pull her back.

That this chapter of their lives, in this house with this group of girls, is somehow the end of their story.

It’s scary to think about it being the end of anything, but the idea that Chloe would be too far away to reach out to when Beca needs her, when she wants a hug or to talk or to go for a drive out to the Taco Bell off the interstate, is sad.

“Yeah we’ve all noticed she’s pulling away. But, well, now’s your chance to talk to her.”

CR’s eyes glance over to where Chloe’s jacket usually resides, on the hook next to Beca’s. The hook is now empty and, a moment after she realises, Beca hears the back door close and the familiar sound of the redhead’s crappy car choking its way to life.

“Hurry!”

Beca dashes out the front door and onto the street, chasing red tail lights until the car comes to a halt.

“Beca?”

Chloe’s eyes are wide, her pupils dark. It’s probably the dim evening light, Beca realises, but it makes her look younger than her years.

And ever so slightly terrified.

Beca swallows harshly and pulls at the door. It doesn’t budge. Chloe leans across and unlocks it from the inside, pushing at the handle a few times until it finally opens.

Huffing slightly, Beca slides into the passenger seat without invitation.

“Can… what are you doing?”

There’s an energy between them that flickers to life as soon as she sits down. Beca wonders whether, since it’s been so long since they’ve been alone together, she’s truly noticing it for the first time. Whether it’s always just… been there. It seems to fizz and crackle, like sparking electricity, and it makes her pulse race but, at the same time, it feels familiar. Like home.

It’s a thought she shelves for another time; for another conversation.

“Are you going anywhere important?”

Chloe can’t lie to her. Beca knows this. Chloe can’t really lie to anyone. She’s an avoider at heart, much like Beca. It explains a lot about how they’ve got to where they currently are.

“Not really. I just… thought I’d go for a drive.”

Beca leans back as she fastens her seatbelt, experience preparing her for Chloe’s ‘enthusiastic’ approach to driving. “Perfect. I’m coming with you.” It’s confident, the way she speaks, and Beca hardly recognises herself. It’s funny, she realises, that she and Chloe always seem to be the opposite sides of the same coin. They are sun and rain, day and night, push and pull. They take it in turns and it keeps the balance. It works. It keeps the world spinning.

It keeps _their_ world spinning.

Chloe doesn’t respond with words, but Beca knows she’s resigned herself to her plan when she indicates, checks her mirrors and presses her foot to the accelerator.

“Talk to me. Like, give me a stream of consciousness. I’ve… I’ve missed you and I’ve missed your voice.” It’s not an admission Beca was expecting to make, and it hangs between them in the air, spelled out against the darkening sky. “You talk. I’ll listen.”

///

Chloe’s mouth opens and closes but no words come out. Beca watches on. And waits.

She waits until she can’t anymore.

Until words force themselves out of her mouth.

“You’ve been pushing me away.” Beca hears the hurt in her own voice as she speaks, sick of waiting for her best friend to find the courage. “And it hurts, Chlo. Not just because I wasn’t prepared to have to miss you yet, but also because I don’t know what I’ve done. Or if I’ve done anything. Which… which isn’t like you. To keep secrets. To be quiet about things. Not like this, anyway.” Beca knows Chloe’s listening from the way she keeps her eyes steady on the road. She takes a deep breath and tries to make Chloe smile, at least. “Dark and brooding loner is kind of my thing, Beale. You need to get your own schtick.”

The corners of Chloe’s mouth lift slightly and Beca resists the urge to fist pump the air at finally having made a connection. The heaviness within her isn’t as harsh, now. Not now that she knows Chloe is listening to her. That she’s not shut her out completely.

“So, care to explain why I literally had to chase you down the street to get to spend time with you? You’re my best friend, Chlo. You’re the most important person in my life. That’s the thing that I keep coming back to. That’s why none of this makes any sense.”

The sigh that escapes from Chloe’s lips is a sound Beca knows she will never be able to forget. It’s heavy and laced with a pain; a sadness that weighs heavy in the space between them. As much as Beca overthinks, she knows Chloe can be worse. She gets caught up in the ‘what if’ and spins a web so complex that she often finds it hard to escape from her own thoughts.

Usually, Beca is the one to pull her out of it.

  
This time, Chloe hadn’t let her.

Until now.

“Chloe?”

She breathes in deeply and exhales again before she speaks. Beca counts to five in her head, glancing across and internally bracing herself for a harsh emotional blow when she notices how Chloe’s fingers are anxiously twitching against the steering wheel.

“I just… I don’t know how to say goodbye. I… I keep thinking about how long I’ve waited, how long I’ve been here, and how much of me is a part of this and how much of Barden and the Bellas is a part of me.” It’s as if the shaken can has finally been opened. Suddenly, everything is overflowing and words are pouring out at an uncontrollable pace. “Everyone keeps talking about how I need to go and find myself now. How I’ve done enough of the college thing and how I should have an idea of where to go next.” Chloe’s breath rattles in her chest. “The problem is, I don’t know who I am without Barden. I… I don’t know who I am without _you._ ”

Beca wants to stop, wants to question the emphasis on that word. She wants to know if it means what she thinks it means. She wants, more than anything, for it to at least mean _something._

She thinks it does.

She doesn’t stop, though. She isn’t sure she can. Instead, she lets Chloe’s words continue to pourout and listens as they wash over her one by one.

“I think I need to, like, work out who I am outside of this place. Outside of… this.” Chloe’s tongue flashes out to lick at her lips. “I just…. I don’t think I really know who I am. Or who I want to be.” Her eyes, Beca can see as they pass by street lights, are glassy with unshed tears. In a way, Beca is glad she’s not holding it back anymore. Even if the truth hurts, she’s glad she is finally getting to hear it. “The problem is that, well, I can’t leave you. I… I can’t. I just… I don’t know what to do. Part of me, the rational part, knows I need space and to be on my own to grow up and learn who I am. The other bit, the selfish part… well, that part just wants to hold onto you forever.”

Beca takes a moment to take in everything Chloe says. Between the words, she hears the silence. She hears how it’s full of fear and unknowing and a longing for everything to be able to stay as it is right now. Just for a little longer. She hears it and she understands because, since the idea of ‘the future’ became tangible and real and something that needed to be talked about, she has understood exactly why Chloe took seven years to graduate.

Why she couldn’t let go.

“Please don’t let me go.”

Beca’s admission falls from her lips without any conscious process. Her words are truthful, more truthful than perhaps she would like to admit just yet. She feels Chloe’s eyes on her and she shakes her head.

“We’ve always worked best as a team, Chloe. I… I think this last week has kind of proved that. And, well, that whole thing at the retreat.” Her fingers entangle in her lap as she speaks. “You don’t have to let go to find yourself. That- excuse me for saying- is bullshit.” Beca pushes her hair back off her face before she continues. “I think the best version of you is exactly who you are right now. And, actually, if you were to go out into the world without any of the things you’ve learned in the last seven years, you’d fall flat on your pretty face. And nobody would want that.” The wink she adds at the end feels uncomfortably on the nose, but it makes Chloe smile. “We’re a team, Chloe. You’re a team person. A people person. I… I don’t see why that has to change.”

Chloe pulls the car over and kills the engine. Beca can see, before she turns to face her, that she’s crying, now.

“But you’re going to New York with Amy. I… I can’t be that far away from you. Not… not now. But you’ve got all these plans and these big dreams and I just don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to go because, well, nowhere makes sense. Not without you.”

There’s a hope that underpins Chloe’s words as they filter through Beca’s ear. There’s a glimmer, a golden shine, a promise of something more. Something unspoken. It’s there, but Beca knows it’s not to be acknowledged.

Not yet.

Still, it’s enough for her to clear her throat and ask the question she’d been clinging onto since she got the initial ‘what happens next’ conversation out of the way with her boss.

“Come with us.”

Chloe’s wide eyes seem to grow cartoonishly large as she tilts her head. “To… to New York?”

“Look, you’re not the only one who’s scared, Chlo. I’m freaking _terrified_ about moving away and starting this whole adult life thing. We all are. None of us are sure about the future. The only thing we know is that it’s going to get harder. And, well, that’s kind of why I want you there. Why I’d quite like the company. But, like, your company specifically. And Amy’s too. But yours is top of the list.”

It’s a relief when Chloe smiles. Beca lets her have a moment of quiet, lets her process. She waits, impatiently wondering what kind of questions her overthinking mind might throw out. She isn’t surprised by what Chloe asks.

“What… what if it changes us? What if we both turn into really different people? What… what then?”

Beca can’t help but wonder if it’s Chloe’s version of the same question she’s been asking herself. A question which much more directly addresses the elephant in the room. A question which cuts through the fog and the crackling energetic tension and asks “what if I’m wrong about us? What if you don’t love me the way I think you do?”

She has an answer. It’s the same for both.

“We can take things slow. It… it’s going to be an adjustment, of course it is, but it’s not like we haven’t already changed. We’re four years in, Chlo. I know I’m not the same person I was when you met me and I know you’ve changed, too. And, well, I still like you.”

Chloe’s smile softens and she reaches out to take Beca’s hand in hers. It isn’t an unusual gesture between them, but it’s been a while and Beca can’t help but notice the way her body responds. She feels Chloe squeeze and she turns to look across at her, falling directly into deep, blue eyes.

“I think I like you more, actually” Chloe responds. “I do miss the eyeliner though, I have to admit.”

  
There’s a lightness, now, between them. The strange weight has gone and the car feels, finally, as if it contains enough air for them both to continue breathing.

“Well, then. Don’t be scared about what might happen in a year. I’ll still be me and you’ll still be you. We’ll just be… in a different place.” Beca hopes Chloe doesn’t ask her to expand on what she means. She hopes she can just accept her words as literally as she can and move on. She sees her knowing glance, though, and something flickers inside her. It forces yet more honestly to escape from her lips.

“I’m going to say this because it’s you and, well, you’re my best friend.” Beca takes a shuddering breath. “I don’t think I can do this without you. I…. I think you’re the reason I’m here. I think you’re, like, the person who gets me more than anyone else. And, well, that’s why I can’t do this without you. That’s why I need you to say yes. I need to know you’re… I need to know you mean it.” Beca’s eyes find Chloe’s. She takes a breath. “I need to know that you want this.”

It’s a loaded statement, Beca knows. It’s laced with a thousand ‘what ifs’ that they haven’t got around to answering.

Still, when Chloe smiles and nods and finally whispers “Wow, New York City” to herself, Beca thinks the future doesn’t feel so scary. It doesn’t feel as if they’re closing the chapter with any notion of finality. Not anymore. In fact, now, it doesn’t feel like the end at all.

Deep down, she knows.

This is the beginning.


End file.
